Matthew Vanstone
There will be a lot more integration between the FM teams in the defence sector particularly in relation to public defence organisations. Improved relationships with defence sector suppliers based on openness, honesty and trust will become more prevalent.
Matthew Vanstone, FM consultant
Matthew Vanstone, FM support consultant at Thomson FM, shares his insight into FM’s role in the defence sector amid several 2021 IWFM Impact Award winning and finalist projects detailing successes in the sector.
To what extent would you say the themes listed above are consistent with your experience of FM in the defence sector?
Having worked for some very large public and private defence companies on both the FM service provider and in house FM teams I think the themes identified are very consistent within FM organisations from both perspectives. Within the defence sector I find everyone is generally aligned to the same service delivery goals of, what do we want to achieve? What is the journey we need to go on to get there? How do we measure our performance delivery along the way? Everyone is working towards delivering great FM to the end user.
What are some other common themes you see in FM contracts in the defence sector?
Collaboration is a new common theme amongst FM contracts in the defence sector, as shown by MITIE winning the IWFM Impact Award for collaboration for their work with the DIO. Defence client FM and service provider FM organisations are acutely aware of what and who the ultimate client is and what it is going to take to deliver the goals. Working jointly to achieve an impactful service delivery to clients is a running theme we are seeing across defence organisations.
Providing value, not necessarily in financial terms, although this is of course critical, in terms of social and wellbeing value to the business. FM’s within these organisations have the ability to impact everyone within the business and it is becoming clearer that there is an appetite to do this where and when they can, especially in the post Covid-19 workplace.
I think the themes across the defence sector are common because they all generally have a common goal to aim towards, manufacturing or maintaining something that has a wider purpose, but to do that the FM teams have to collaborate.
What are some of the unique pressures or challenges for FM in defence?
Security obviously being key in terms of delivering an excellent FM service in extraordinary environments.
Critical business environments - There are lots of them compared to what one would class as a standard FM environment, making M&E maintenance of utmost importance within these areas and keeping the defence organisations moving.
Service delivery locations can sometimes prove very challenging, in terms of resource availability including people and supplies, due to a lot of defence organisations having and being in remote locations.
How do you think FM services in the defence sector are likely to evolve over the next few years and in what ways will they be consistent with or different from FM service delivery in other sectors?
As demonstrated there will be a lot more integration between the FM teams in the defence sector particularly in relation to public defence organisations. Improved relationships with defence sector suppliers based on openness, honesty and trust will become more prevalent. More open customer - supplier relationships will benefit all parties involved and ultimately the end users. I think in this way organisations such as the DIO are leading the way in the FM sector.
The defence sector will also be looking at other FM sectors and how they can integrate more common working practises, such as working remotely, but within high security environments this can prove difficult.
Competition between industry service providers will become more widespread, as defence organisation tenders become more competitive and this will drive continuous improvement across defence organisations.
FM service providers will need to digitise more information to collect and manage defence sector estate data, take the lead on digital technologies and provide estate intelligence via IoT, as IoT usage becomes more prevalent across the FM sector as a whole. The FM sector used to just talk about the benefits of using IoT, but I think the FM sector is now realising actual paybacks of the technologies available and making great savings and changes to businesses, such as space utilisation/rationalisation and energy saving initiatives.
Performance measures and KPIs that will be adopted to provide incentives for suppliers to perform well, including gainshare mechanisms.
Going green – as the world moves towards carbon zero I think there will be a lot more focus on this driven by the FM teams in defence sector organisations
An abridged version of this Q&A appears in the November-December 2021 edition of Facilitate, which showcased the winners of 2021 IWFM Impact Awards.
